Aishah Alreshoud ENGL 864 Dr. Williamson June 9, 2014 Short Writing Assignment # 1
Creation and Moral Responsibility How do Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus and Corinne, or Italy shape our understanding and experience of the process of creation and it consequences?
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I think, is an explicit commentary on the process of creation and its consequences. Victor longed for company after his mother’s death and when he left his brothers and Elizabeth to attend university. One of the reasons that explain his creation of the monster is seeking a friend or a companion to ease his loneliness. This notion of seeking companionship in creation reminds us of the analogy between the Adam and Eve story and Frankenstein. Like Victor, Adam wanted a companion and Eve was created. Also, like Victor’s Creation/ Creature, Eve brings about Adam’s downfall and makes his life worse, instead of better as Adam expected, according to the Biblical story and John Milton’s representation in Paradise Lost. Both Adam and Victor did not anticipate the risk and responsibility that comes with creation. Victor’s creation turned out to be more adaptable and autonomous than his creator. While Victor felt lonely and unable to cope with his new reality after leaving his family and domestic life, the creation/ creature was better at adopting with his new reality after he created and put together. Victor comments on his inability to cope with new people and new settings saying, “my life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic; and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; ‘these were old familiar faces’; but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers” (73). Gigante in her article “ Facing the Ugly: ‘The Case of Frankenstein”’ seems to concur. She emphasizes the power of the creation/ creature saying, “the Creature, too, is fit—or too fit. His superhuman ability to overcome natural adversity, far from inspiring admiration, horrifies his persecuted maker: ‘he had followed me in my travels; he ad loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths’” (574). In regarding the process for creation, we cannot ignore the selfishness of the motivation. Victor did not spend much time thinking about what the creation/ creature would do, feel and think. The monster, later on, showed the same loneliness that Victor felt and begs Victor to create another monster to serve as his companion, something that Victor never expected when he created the monster. Interestingly, Victor assumed the monster to be incapable of feelings and void of social needs. Nonetheless, the monster defied all of Victor’s expectations, or lack of expectations. One question that Mary Shelley seems to ask repeatedly in Frankenstein is “whose fault is it?” When the monster commits the murders, do we blame the monster or his creator? Do we hold the monster accountable for committing a crime assuming his autonomy? The monster commits these murders as acts of revenge, which means he is capable of feelings and planning. He also feels lonely and asks for a companion. All of these are human feelings. Yet, the readers and Victor are determined to view the creation/ creature as monster and animal-like creation, not as human. Again, Shelley’s chilling account of what a creation is capable of draws our attention to the responsibility that comes with the act of creation. Victor’s own miscalculated act of creation destroyed a whole family, created misery and agony, and led his to suffer and die. Winnicott further explains “there would be a hallucination of an object if there were memory material for use in the process of creation but this cannot be postulated in consideration of the theoretical first need. Here the new human being is in the position of creating the world. The motive is personal need; we witness need gradually changing over into desire” (102). I like to compare Victor to the parent figure and the creation/ creature to the infant that comes to the world completely dependent on the parent. The creation/ creature knows that he needs his creator/ parent. Thus, when he feels the need for a companion, he asks Victor to provide him with a female monster to be his companion. This need gradually grows into a desire and the monster insists that he desires a wife or a companion. Because of this distorted relation with the external world and shared reality, the creation/ creature resorts to revenge and killing Victor’s brother and friend in order to achieve his desires. In Corinne, or Italy we encounter a different experience of creation. In this book, the creation of imagination and art is emphasized. At the beginning, influenced by his French travel companion, Lord Nelvil or Oswald creates an image about Italy that does not stimulate his curiosity. Oswald’s melancholy and imagination are creations that influence his perception and actions. Furthermore, it can be argued that Corinne, Oswald and Victor in Frankenstein are who they are because of what they read and the literature that influence them. Victor’s interest in natural philosophy led him to create the monster. Victor himself is a creation and product of that science. Lord Nelvil, on the other hand, is creation of English literature and English history. In Corinne, Or Italy, every character is proud of his/ her nationality and they all strive to prove that their people possess the best knowledge, history, manners and art. One of the ideas that both Frankenstein and Corinne, or Italy discuss is literature as creation. Literature is created by the imagination of both the author and the reader. Mary Shelley’s imagination created Victor and his creation and our imagination as readers recreates these two creations. As readers, we choose how to respond to Victor’s motivation and actions. We also choose to blame him or blame the monster for the crimes committed. Our judgment is often affected by our world and how we understand life experiences. Noteworthy, our world as contemporary readers is definitely different to the world in which Shelley created Frankenstein. In addition, Corinne, or Italy is loaded with history and national references. De Stael attempts to show that everyone is a product and creation of their national consciousness, history, and imagination. According to Winnicott, “without [the mother] being ‘good’ enough in this respect the infant can have no hope whatever of a capacity for excited relationship with objects or people in what we as observers call the real world, external or shared reality, the world not created by the infant” (101). If we apply Winnicott’s analysis to the Victor- creation/ creature relationship, we can say that Victor “was not good enough” in nourishing his creation and meeting his emotional needs. Thus, the creation’s relation with the external world or shared reality becomes distorted.
ENGL 864
Dr. Williamson
June 9, 2014
Short Writing Assignment # 1
Creation and Moral Responsibility
How do Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus and Corinne, or Italy shape our understanding and experience of the process of creation and it consequences?
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I think, is an explicit commentary on the process of creation and its consequences. Victor longed for company after his mother’s death and when he left his brothers and Elizabeth to attend university. One of the reasons that explain his creation of the monster is seeking a friend or a companion to ease his loneliness. This notion of seeking companionship in creation reminds us of the analogy between the Adam and Eve story and Frankenstein. Like Victor, Adam wanted a companion and Eve was created. Also, like Victor’s Creation/ Creature, Eve brings about Adam’s downfall and makes his life worse, instead of better as Adam expected, according to the Biblical story and John Milton’s representation in Paradise Lost.
Both Adam and Victor did not anticipate the risk and responsibility that comes with creation. Victor’s creation turned out to be more adaptable and autonomous than his creator. While Victor felt lonely and unable to cope with his new reality after leaving his family and domestic life, the creation/ creature was better at adopting with his new reality after he created and put together. Victor comments on his inability to cope with new people and new settings saying, “my life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic; and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; ‘these were old familiar faces’; but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers” (73).
Gigante in her article “ Facing the Ugly: ‘The Case of Frankenstein”’ seems to concur. She emphasizes the power of the creation/ creature saying, “the Creature, too, is fit—or too fit. His superhuman ability to overcome natural adversity, far from inspiring admiration, horrifies his persecuted maker: ‘he had followed me in my travels; he ad loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths’” (574).
In regarding the process for creation, we cannot ignore the selfishness of the motivation. Victor did not spend much time thinking about what the creation/ creature would do, feel and think. The monster, later on, showed the same loneliness that Victor felt and begs Victor to create another monster to serve as his companion, something that Victor never expected when he created the monster. Interestingly, Victor assumed the monster to be incapable of feelings and void of social needs. Nonetheless, the monster defied all of Victor’s expectations, or lack of expectations.
One question that Mary Shelley seems to ask repeatedly in Frankenstein is “whose fault is it?” When the monster commits the murders, do we blame the monster or his creator? Do we hold the monster accountable for committing a crime assuming his autonomy? The monster commits these murders as acts of revenge, which means he is capable of feelings and planning. He also feels lonely and asks for a companion. All of these are human feelings. Yet, the readers and Victor are determined to view the creation/ creature as monster and animal-like creation, not as human.
Again, Shelley’s chilling account of what a creation is capable of draws our attention to the responsibility that comes with the act of creation. Victor’s own miscalculated act of creation destroyed a whole family, created misery and agony, and led his to suffer and die.
Winnicott further explains “there would be a hallucination of an object if there were memory material for use in the process of creation but this cannot be postulated in consideration of the theoretical first need. Here the new human being is in the position of creating the world. The motive is personal need; we witness need gradually changing over into desire” (102). I like to compare Victor to the parent figure and the creation/ creature to the infant that comes to the world completely dependent on the parent. The creation/ creature knows that he needs his creator/ parent. Thus, when he feels the need for a companion, he asks Victor to provide him with a female monster to be his companion. This need gradually grows into a desire and the monster insists that he desires a wife or a companion. Because of this distorted relation with the external world and shared reality, the creation/ creature resorts to revenge and killing Victor’s brother and friend in order to achieve his desires.
In Corinne, or Italy we encounter a different experience of creation. In this book, the creation of imagination and art is emphasized. At the beginning, influenced by his French travel companion, Lord Nelvil or Oswald creates an image about Italy that does not stimulate his curiosity. Oswald’s melancholy and imagination are creations that influence his perception and actions.
Furthermore, it can be argued that Corinne, Oswald and Victor in Frankenstein are who they are because of what they read and the literature that influence them. Victor’s interest in natural philosophy led him to create the monster. Victor himself is a creation and product of that science. Lord Nelvil, on the other hand, is creation of English literature and English history. In Corinne, Or Italy, every character is proud of his/ her nationality and they all strive to prove that their people possess the best knowledge, history, manners and art.
One of the ideas that both Frankenstein and Corinne, or Italy discuss is literature as creation. Literature is created by the imagination of both the author and the reader. Mary Shelley’s imagination created Victor and his creation and our imagination as readers recreates these two creations. As readers, we choose how to respond to Victor’s motivation and actions. We also choose to blame him or blame the monster for the crimes committed. Our judgment is often affected by our world and how we understand life experiences. Noteworthy, our world as contemporary readers is definitely different to the world in which Shelley created Frankenstein.
In addition, Corinne, or Italy is loaded with history and national references. De Stael attempts to show that everyone is a product and creation of their national consciousness, history, and imagination.
According to Winnicott, “without [the mother] being ‘good’ enough in this respect the infant can have no hope whatever of a capacity for excited relationship with objects or people in what we as observers call the real world, external or shared reality, the world not created by the infant” (101). If we apply Winnicott’s analysis to the Victor- creation/ creature relationship, we can say that Victor “was not good enough” in nourishing his creation and meeting his emotional needs. Thus, the creation’s relation with the external world or shared reality becomes distorted.